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A Garden of Void, A Museum of Space

Julia Valle Noronha

Abstract

This article intends to present the idea that spaces in general can be reorganized bythe viewer in terms of contents. It takes the example of a rock garden to show howvibrant every matter can be, inanimate or animate. This idea is expanded to museumsand galleries.

Keywords: garden, void, space, vibrancy

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

9 ,10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Image 1 . Corner view of the Ryoan Ji rock garden in Kyoto. Picture/Illustration: Julia Valle

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 89, 10, 11, 12, 13

When you get to this 15 stones garden the first thing/non-thing you encounter is

void.

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The further you moveThe harder you count13, 14.13.

What stands between you, who stares, and that missing stone?

A Rock Garden, or as we chose to call it here, A Garden of Void, is a space built forcontemplation. Its stones set over a bed of sand represent mountains or land overwater, which also means that somehow the movement of a river is kept there, for theobserver to set free. When moving (or standing still) around this garden one isinevitably tempted to imagine, to mentally build images, sounds, to create that one ortwo missing stones in any shape desired. That temptation, though, does not comefrom a human actant1, but, from the objects, or the lack of them.

Jane Bennett, a political theorist, suggests that matter (also meaning all sorts ofobjects) are full of lively powers of material formations, such as the way omega-3fatty acids can alter human mood.

By vitality I mean the capacity of things edibles, commodities, storms,metals not only to impede or block the will and designs of humans but also toact as quasi agents or forces with trajectories, propensities or tendencies of theirown.(BENNETT, viii, 2011)

In that sense, matter, such as the stones at the Ryoan-Ji garden, or the white sand

under them, could be taken as actants, as matter able to change the curse of yourthoughts, of your feelings, of you.

As well as that, pretty much anything or anywhere could alter observers andinteractors in some way. But particular ones, for reasons we are probably not able tofully understand or explain here, are able of deeper changes. Museums, in my personalexperience, are some of them.

You can think of a museum full of great art (hard to define great but we will takegreat here as what moves you), those that really have an impact on how you relate tothe world. But more than that, I would say that only the fact of calling a space a

museum or gallery already brings a large amount of expectancies and possibilitiesthat by themselves are quite able to provoke resonances in us from their vibrant couldbes.

An Empty Museum, or as we chose to call it here, A Museum of Space, appears to beone of those places that grow bigger as you step into. Its empty walls and floors mayeasily represent pictures, drawings, videos, sculptures, sounds, and flow of energybetween the artwork and the viewers/interactors. So when moving around a museumspace you will probably be, too, inevitably tempted to imagine what artwork should beplaced there.

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And this seems to be the best part of empty spaces. The possibility of transforming itinto your own filled void.

Bibliographic References

DELEUZE, Gilles e GUATARRI, Felix. O que a Filosofia?So Paulo: Editora 34,

1992.

ISOZAKI, Arata.Espace Temps Du Japon.Paris: Musee des Arts Decoratif, 1978._____________ .Japan-ness in Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011.

LATOUR, Bruno. Reassembling the social: an introduction to Actornetwork theory,

Oxford ; New York, Oxford: University Press, 2005

MERLEAU-PONTY, Maurice. O Olho e o Esprito. So Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2011

NIETSCHKE, Gunther.MA. Place, space, void.Kyoto: Kyoto Journal #8, 2009

OKANO, Michiko. MA: Entre-Espao na Comunicao e na Arte. So Paulo: Ana

Blume, 2013

PALLASMAA, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. New York:

John Wiley, 2005

SIMONDON, Gilbert. in Cadernos de Subjetividade: O reencantamento do

Concreto.A Gnese do Indivduo. So Paulo: Editora HUCITEC, 2003

TANIZAKI, Junichiro. Em Louvor da Sombra. So Paulo: Companhia das Letras,

2007.

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Film Reference

MA: SPACE/TIME IN THE GARDEN OF RYOAN-JI.Direo/Roteiro: Takahiko

Iimura. Texto: Arata Isozaki. Musica: Takehisa Kosugi. Kyoto1989, 16mm, Color,

16min. Sound).

MA (INTERVALS).Direo/Roteiro/Edio: Takahiko Iimura. Kyoto, 1977. 16mm,

B&W & Color, 10min.(Auto Play), 22min.(Single Play)

ZEN GRTEN:Erleuchtung in Stein. Direo/Roteiro: Viktor Stauder. Edio:

Armin Riegel . Berlim, 2012. 43min.